The Open Public Services White Paper published this summer outlines how the government plans to make the whole spectrum of public services, from bin collections to universities and hospitals, more open and responsive to need, placing a heavy emphasis on user satisfaction research as a key tool. In this article, we offer some pointers to good practice in user satisfaction research, but suggest that there are limitations to its applicability and use, and that the ‘special place’ it seems to be accorded might even tell us something of the limitations of the White Paper itself.

The UK Government recently announced that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) would be developing new measures of national well-being relating to people’s quality of life, the environment and sustainability, and economic performance. Part of the motivation for the project is a growing recognition that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gives only a partial – and perhaps perverse – picture of how the country is doing.